Le Fix Learns a New Word - Chiffonade

Remember our old friend Leekfixer?  He's been busy farming and market-managing, but he's back with a new guest post that takes us further into his exploration of French culture.  Please enjoy with FruHo's compliments. Merci.

Le Fix first heard the word "chiffonade" a couple of months ago on one of those tv shows on the Foodie Network. He was busy with his tweetin', tumblrin' and facebookin' so didn't see what they were talking about. He figured it was some kind of fancy pants drink like koolaid or lemonade, probably made in Le France. The other night Le Fix was watching that new show with that blond spikey haired girl who used to be Bataly's sous chef (Le Fix thinks that must be French for sidekick). The show is about a bunch of nitwi .... um,  people who don't know how to boil water and the blond girl is supposed to teach them how to cook. Le Fix wants to know where they find these people, jeez.

Anyway, La blond told her recruits that they had to chiffonade some bok choy or something. Le Fix was looking for the glass and thinking that bok choy probably would need a lot of extra sugar to make a good drink. Then she showed them how to do it. All she did was cut the stuff up into strips. Hell, Le Fix could do that in his sleep! So apparently chiffonade is a fancy pants (probably French) word for cutting up vegetables.

Then Le Fix was doing some twittering after that (he does that a lot) and one of his twitter friends said she was going to chiffonade some collard. Well, Le Fix just about fell out of his barcolounger laughing at that one. She was from New York City so he figured she didn't know any better. Le Fix thought to him self that his father in law (that's FIL in twitspeak in case you were wondering), the collard king, would roll over in his grave if he heard that. FIL is still kickin it old style so you don't have to worry. He twitted back that down here in the land of collards we cook them whole and cut them up in a bowl after they are tender.

So if you are wanting to be a foodie (Le Fix was called a top 100 foodie on friendseat.com, they must have been lookin in the same place they look for people for that tv show La blond is on), instead of telling people you are cutting up vegetables, tell them you are chiffonading them.

Le Fix would love to hear that fancy pants french chef Eric Le Ripper say " je suis making zee chiffonade de la collards si vou plait"

LeFix Concoqs a Multinational Incident

During the first Eat on $30 Challenge, The Frugal Hostess had the pleasure to "meet" Leekfixer first on Twitter, and then IRL a few short weeks ago.  Leekfixer writes about his suburban farming adventures on The Funny Farm and about his collisions with French food here on The Frugal Hostess.  And now, Dear Readers, FruHo urges you to delve into this multi-national incident.  

LeFix was watching one of those Iron Chef shows awhile back, and they were talking about Coq au Vin. He thought they were talking about some kind of kinky porno stuff he hadn't heard of yet but it turned out they were talking about chicken. When he looked it up on the interwebs (LeFix always heard it called the internet but maybe not) he found out that the fancy-pants French chefs liked to use old hens to make this stuff. They put wine in it too, which LeFix thinks is a waste of good Party Likker but what the hey... when in Paris....

Well, LeFix's friend was moving from one farm to another, and he had some hens he didn't want to move because he said they were too old and wouldn't lay eggs much longer. He tried to find somebody to buy them but seeing as how there ain't too many fancy pants French Chefs around these parts he gave one to LeFix. Woohhooo -- time to make coq au vin.

LeFix went on the interwebs again and found a recipe on a site called Epicurius (LeFix thinks that is French for people who are curious to learn how to cook). The recipe said it would take two days to make.  TWO DAYS!!!  LeFix usually likes to cook stuff that takes more like 30 minutes, you know like that cute Rachael Ray does on TV. (Not really, but 2 DAYS?) Well, being that it was Christmas and LeFix doesn't like sitting around watching football all day he decided that, since LaFix had invited a bunch of people over for dinner in a few days, he might as well give it a shot.

The recipe said to make a marinade with a whole bottle of wine, some onions, carrots, garlic and pepper and let the coq soak in it for a day. Ok, if the coq was going to soak up some wine then Le Fix figured he should get some Party Likker and join in the fun. (Step 1: Drink a shot of homemade Party Likker.)

It was after that when the lightbulb came on and LeFix remembered the bottles of wine his best friend brought over to the Funny Farm about a year ago. You may be wondering why LaFix hadn't drunk that wine after a year (she really likes her wine).  Well it turns out that LeFix’s best friend was a deadhead (you know: following around the Grateful Dead, hair in dreadlocks, selling hemp jewelry, getting high, twirl dancing, hula hooping). Somehow or other she ended up with a bunch of Deadhead wine. Problem was that the wine had been dealcoholized (which means somebody removed the Party Likker and drank it themselves, I guess). Nobody here at the Funny Farm wants to drink dealcoholized wine.  We like our Party Likker intact. So if you won't drink it you might as well cook with it. [Editor’s note: Um, what?  How do you take the booze part out of booze?  Was it Wharf Rat wine?]

So, the Deadhead wine went into a pot along with the other ingredients the recipe called for. Now here is where the multinational part comes in. LeFix grows a type of onion here at the Funny Farm called a Welsh onion. It comes from Wales (that’s over near England somewhere). Oh yeah, there is another French Connection too (haha). Since LaFix invited so many people over for dinner LeFix needed another coq to feed everyone. Well the coq dealer [Editor’s note: HA!] didn't have any more free hens so Le Fix had to buy a chicken. This chicken cost $20 freakin' dollars. And the damn thing only ate grass and bugs. What's up with that?  It turns out it was a kind of chicken called a Poulet Rouge (that's French for red chicken) [Editor’s note: Not French for a chicken wearing makeup?]. Le Fix was expecting the meat to be red but when he cut it open it looked just like that old hen, only less fat. The dang thing better taste real good.

While the coqs were soaking up the wine LeFix made another batch of pate like he talked about last time using livers from those French red chickens. The livers were red but so were the other ones.  [Editor’s note: So Poulet Rouge remains a mystery.]

The recipe called for mushrooms so the next day Le Fix went out in the woods to get some wild oyster mushrooms to put into the dish. He nearly broke his freakin' neck sliding down the muddy hill where they were growing but the recipe said use wild mushrooms so LeFix was determined to follow it to a T. Well except it called for bacon which LeFix did not have but he figured he could get away with using fatback he got from Nature's Harmony Farm where they raise their half-wild pigs in the woods where they get fat eating acorns and stuff.

Oh yeah, it called for shallots which are some kind of French onion (not that kind that comes in a can that you put on green bean casserole. LeFix has plenty of those). But, keeping with the multinational theme, LeFix decided it would be okay to use more of those Welsh onions. Then he read further and saw it called for 20 pearl onions. Pearl onions?  What the heck are those? Those fancy pants French chefs sure are picky about their onions.  Le Fix grew a bunch of garlic this year so he decided to expand the multinationality into another country and use garlic instead. (Garlic? Italy? Mama mia!)

So from here on out there was a lot of straining this, browning that, simmering this, that and the other, until finally everything goes into one pot for a while. Then, after it was finished LeFix put it in the refrigerator until the next day because the recipe said it would taste better. LeFix was so hungry by that point he could have eaten the whole thing. But guests were coming tomorrow. [Editor’s note: FruHo is so hungry at this point that she gnawed through her mouse cord.]

LaFix had invited the guests over for coqtails before dinner so it was touch and go for a while for LeFix to actually get the coq au vin on the table cause LeFix au vin was having a little (well more than a little) trouble focusing after having a few coqtails.  But everybody pitched in and le coq au vin hit the table and was gobbled up in short order.

Tres magnifique.

Complete coq au von recipe can be found here.

The Frugal Hostess is once again in LeFix.  Please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter @frugalhostess, or subscribe (over there, on the left) so that you always know when a new post appears.

Guest Blogger: LeekFixer Gets TFH in Le~Fix

During the first Eat on $30 Challenge, The Frugal Hostess had the pleasure to "meet" Leekfixer on Twitter.  He's been a faithful online friend every since. Leekfixer writes about his suburban farming adventures on The Funny Farm, and, when she read that he had recently made her favorite-food-of-all-time pate, FruHo insisted that he write about it here.  And now, Gentle Friends, TFH is truly in Le' Fix about pate. 

Hi Ya’ll, Leekfixer here. Leekfixer is not used to writing in 3^rd person so he hopes you can forgive him if he messes up once in a while. He noticed that The Frugal Hostess shortens her name to FruHo when she writes her posts. Leekfixer figures she is trying to save space on the page, you know, being her frugal self. (really he thinks she’s lazy but don’t tell her I , we, he said that ;). Leekfixer figured he’d follow her lead and shorten his name too. Le’Fix . Seems about right since this post is about French food.

Le’Fix was at a party a while back where they were serving lots of really good food. One thing in particular he really liked was some kind of spread on crackers. He asked the fella who was having the party what it was, and The Fella said it was pate´. Le’Fix asked what was in it. The Fella said it was chicken livers. Well Le’Fix has eaten fried chicken livers before, and he did not like them all that much [Editor’s note: Because Le’Fix is insane.] but he really liked this French version.

He was rooting around in the freezer the other day and found a package of chicken livers he got from the local grassfed beef farm in the summer. Le’Fix was going be throwing his own party (that’s English for soireé) so he decided to make some of those French fried chicken livers. Being a man, Le’Fix doesn’t really like to follow directions, but, seeing as how he did not have a clue as to how the French make that pate´ he figured he better look it up on the internet. He got really excited when he read the recipe (French for directions) because it said to used four of his favorite things: bacon fat (Le’Fix always called it bacon grease but La’Fix - French for Le’Fix’s wife - said he should call it bacon fat because grease makes it sound like the stuff that is leaking out from under his truck), uh, anyway, bacon fat, garlic, butter and party likker. Yeah, there’s chicken livers in there too.

Like he said earlier, Le’Fix doesn’t much like to follow directions so he made some changes to the recipe. For one thing it called for something called ghee. What the heck is ghee?  It’s not even French; he found out on the internet. So he figured he’d use some bacon grease fat instead. The directions called for 6 oz. of ghee so Le’Fix figured he would probably need to fry up a whole package of bacon to get that much fat. He got the bacon frying in the cast iron skillet. Then he rounded up the rest of the stuff he needed. He got a couple sticks of butter out of the fridge. The recipe called for shallots which Le’Fix figured was French for garlic so he chopped up six big, fat cloves. Then he noticed that the directions called for soaking the chicken livers in milk for four hours or overnight. Well, Le’Fix had lots of stuff to do for the party so waiting til tomorrow was not an option. He poured the milk over the livers and stuck them in the fridge where he didn’t have to look at them because they looked pretty gross.

The next thing he saw he needed was sherry which he knew was some fancypants kind of French party likker. He figured party likker was party likker so he looked in the old party likker cabinet and found an open bottle of Scotch whiskey. Le’Fix grew up in the Valley of Virginia where lots of Scottish folks settled. He has some Scottish blood in him too, so he figured it would work OK. This pate´ is already turning into some kind of international dish anyway what with the ghee and all so he figured adding another country would be just fine. By now Le’Fix had worked up a powerful thirst so he poured himself a shot of party likker and tossed it back. Then he ate about half the bacon. He couldn’t help himself. The smell was overpowering his self-control. [Editor’s note: Sounds like The Frugal Hostess’s style of cooking bacon – one for the plate, one for her mouth.]

While he was waiting for the livers to soak up the milk (gross) he decided to make some crackers to put the pate´ on for the party. Le’Fix  does not trust anything that comes in a box or can, no matter what it says on the label. He figured ya’ll might like to make your own crackers too so he posted his cracker recipe here.  [Editor’s note: If you don’t already, please start reading the Funny Farm. It’s funny and farmy.]

He figured he might as well have another shot of party likker and finish off the bacon then get to putting the pate´ together. He tossed the garlic into the bacon fat, drained the milk off of the livers (gross) and tossed them into the pan just like the Southern do when frying up chicken livers. The directions said to let them cook until they got brown and most of the liquid (considerable it said) had been cooked off. After that it said to deglaze the pan with the party likker. Le’Fix figured what that meant was to pour the party likker into the pan with the livers. It said to use a half a cup which, if Le’Fix calculated right, was equal to 4 shots. Whoohoo this pate´is gonna be good! The bottle was almost empty by now so Le’Fix figured he might as well finish it off so he could put in the recycle bin. He did, too.

Then he read that he should put in some rubbed sage. Well by this time Le’Fix was in no mood to be rubbing on some sage so he got some fresh marjoram (he grew it himself) out of the fridge and proceeded to chop it up Morimoto style. He figured it was about 2 tablespoons but things were getting a little blurry by now so he wasn’t really sure. He tossed the marjoram at the pan and let everything cook down like it said until the party likker was gone.

Much of the rest of the process was a blur but Le’Fix remembers taking the pan off the stove and burning the crap out of his hand. While he was doctoring up his hand the concoction had cooled down enough to put into the food processor with 1 and ½ sticks of the softened butter. He really likes salt so he put a pinch or 2 in there and whirled it around until it looked like, well, until it was smooth and creamy.[Editor’s note: Gross.]

Next the directions said to spoon it into a ramekin. WTF is a ramekin? Must be French for some kind of fancypants bowl. So Le’Fix got out his fanciest bowl and scooped the pate´ into it. Then he smoothed it out on top really good, put some rosemary leaves on there for decoration (he grew it himself) then poured the remaining ¼ stick of melted butter over the top to seal the deal.

Tres Bien!

Chicken Liver Pâté

Ingredients:
1 lb livers from pasture-fed chickens
1 pint fresh milk
fat from 1 lb. bacon (about 1/2 cup)
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh marjoram, finely chopped
½ cup scotch whiskey
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1¾ sticks of butter softened to room temperature
Fresh rosemary leaves (for garnish)

Instructions:
1.  Rinse chicken livers gently, drain them and put them in a bowl.
2.  Pour the fresh milk over the chicken livers and allow them to marinate for at least 4 hours.
3.  Heat bacon fat in a skillet until melted.
4.  Add the diced garlic and simmer over low heat until translucent (be careful not to burn it). About 10 minutes.
5.  Drain the chicken livers.
6.  Add the chicken livers to the onions and bacon fat. Simmer chicken livers until cooked through and until the liquid has cooked down to a thick sauce. About 20 minutes.
7.  Add the marjoram, salt, and the scotch whiskey.
8.  Continue to cook until the scotch has been reduced to a thick sauce. About 10 minutes.
9.  Allow the mixture to cool.
10.  Add the liver mixture and 1½ sticks of softened butter to a food processor and process until smooth.
11.  Spoon pâté into a bowl, smooth the top surface and garnish with fresh the rosemary leaves.
12.  Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter ( if you have any more bacon fat you can use it in place of the butter) and gently pour over the top of the pate´ covering the whole surface.
13.  Place the pate in the refrigerator for a few hours to allow it to set up. The butter topping helps to preserve it and keep the top moist. It will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks while undisturbed.
14.  Remove it from the refrigerator at least four hours before serving.

The Frugal Hostess is craving pate. Please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter @frugalhostess, or subscribe so that you always know when a new post appears.